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US jobless data sends stocks to record highs

Jobless data keeps on improving in the US, and, combined with better than expected earnings this sent the S&P 500 up to new record highs as investors also weighed up Bernanke's testimony.

At the time of writing the Dow is up by well over 100 points or 0.7% to above 15,570, with the S&P 500 also up by 0.7%.

Interesting, trivia: stocks are up by well over 100% since Barack Obama commenced the Presidency.

With stock valuations increasingly so dramatically since 2009, Anatole Kaletsky sees the breakout representing a new, long-term US bull market. From Reuters:

"The bull market in global equities that started in the dark days of early 2009 passed a historic milestone this week. When the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index closed on Monday at 1682.5, this did not just represent a new record high and a full recovery from the swoon that Wall Street suffered after Ben Bernanke’s “tapering” comments in late May.

More importantly, Monday’s record close marked the first time this key Wall Street index exceeded by more than 10 percent its peak at the climax of the last great bull market in March 2000."